Introduction

Jerome Klapka Jerome (2 May 1859 – 14 June 1927) was an English writer and humourist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889). Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) and Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow; Three Men on the Bummel, a sequel to Three Men in a Boat; and several other novels. Jerome was born in Walsall, England, and, although he was able to attend grammar school, his family suffered from poverty at times, as did he as a young man trying to earn a living in various occupations. In his twenties, he was able to publish some work, and success followed. He married in 1888, and the honeymoon was spent on a boat on the River Thames; he published Three Men in a Boat soon afterwards. He continued to write fiction, non-fiction and plays over the next few decades, though never with the same level of success.

World War I and Last Years

Jerome volunteered to serve his country at the outbreak of World War I but, being 55 years old, he was rejected by the British Army. Eager to serve in some capacity, he volunteered as an ambulance driver for the French Army. In 1926, Jerome published his autobiography, My Life and Times. Shortly afterwards, the Borough of Walsall conferred on him the title Freeman of the Borough. During these last years, Jerome spent more time at his farmhouse Gould’s Grove south-east of Ewelme near Wallingford.

Jerome suffered a paralytic stroke and a cerebral haemorrhage in June 1927, on a motoring tour from Devon to London via Cheltenham and Northampton. He lay in Northampton General Hospital for two weeks before dying on 14 June. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and his ashes buried at St Mary’s Church, Ewelme, Oxfordshire. Elsie, Ettie and his sister Blandina are buried beside him. His gravestone reads “For we are labourers together with God”. A small museum dedicated to his life and works was opened in 1984 at his birth home in Walsall, but it closed in 2008 and the contents were returned to Walsall Museum.

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